Flying Through Quality

Boeing 787 (Google Images)

Quality is an important factor when producing goods and services. Each organization sets its own quality standards based on customers’ demands and needs. If we look at quality from the customers’ perspective we will want to have products that we can rely on when using them, otherwise if the product is defective we might want to stop using it. On the manufacturers’ perspective if the customers are unsure of quality on their products, it is their job to make the necessary adjustments to make the product attractive to the customer again.  When the situation is created by defect on fabrication it can mean big amount of money losses for the manufacturer, therefore it should work on fixing the defects as soon as these are detected in order to avoid bigger losses and not get their reputation hurt.

 

An example of a company restoring confidence in its product is Boeing and the battery problems that its passenger jet 787s has been facing since January and that it cost them to stop flying them. According to an article in the New York Times by Christopher Drew and Jad Mouawad, the Federal Aviation Administration approved in April the company’s plan to fix the batteries of 50 jets that where delivered at that time. The authors explain that the lithium-ion batteries problems were detected when two of them had overheated in two different jets. As soon as the problem was detected its engineers worked on finding the causes of the defective batteries and the best approach to fix it. Collection of data was necessary to support the changes and come up with a plan.  Luckily, the 800 orders that were already planned for the plane were not affected, the authors explain, since it promised a 20 percent fuel savings. After collecting data and analyzing it, the company decided to send several technicians around the world to fix the batteries and install the new system which includes better insulation and other features to prevent batteries incidents (Drew and Mouawad). The article goes on by explaining that even after this efforts by the company to fix the problem, Japanese airlines have asked for more assurance that the incidents will not be likely to happen again or at least detected by introducing monitoring systems for the batteries that would send information about the batteries conditions and replacement of them every certain time period. All this efforts are done in order to recover the customer’s confidence.

 
We can see in this example how a defect might represents serious consequences in the company’s reputation and generate monetary losses. This illustrates the importance of having systems that monitor the quality and processes on production and if problems are presented look for the causes and fix them as soon as possible.

 
Do you think Boeing’s approach to solve the problem was appropriate? Should the company provide monitoring systems that Japanese airlines demand or do you think is enough just by replacing the batteries and the insulation system implemented?

 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/business/faa-endorses-boeing-remedy-for-787-battery.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1370203420-Yz8jS+nRMM8ILF6/hvaO2g

Audio Innovations-Growth Stage

Rock-It 3.0 OrigAudio

We have learned in our Management 301 class that every product is subject to a life cycle. In its early stage, called introduction, the product is designed, developed with attention to quality, short production and limited models. The next stage is growth, where forecasting is critical, the product goes through competitive improvements, and distribution is enhanced. Then the product goes through maturity, in which standardization takes place. Finally, the product declines, where there is a lower product cost, differentiation decreases and capacity is reduced.

 
There are several products in the market that we can see going through the life cycle, but I have found an interesting article that makes reference to good examples of products on growth stage. They are the OrigAudio products, such as cardboard speakers, headphones and golf-ball-size amplifiers. According to the article in the Chicago Tribune by Ronald White, these OrigAudio products started being developed by Chicago entrepreneurs Jason Lucash and Mike Azymczk. These two marketers got their products in the market and successfully accomplished to be listed as one of the best inventions in 2009 by Times Magazine, just after a short period of time of their introduction (White, Ronald).
During the introduction stage the process design and development were critical, as well as they had short production run. The article mentions that since they are marketers, they don’t know about engineering, so they have been looking for people that can complete their team by helping them to bring their innovating ideas to life. Now, in the growth stage the entrepreneurs have been working on enhancing distribution. One of their most important decisions was moving to California. According to the article, by moving closer to the Pacific, great benefits were acquired by OrigAudio such as; decrease on transportation costs of inputs from China. But mostly, because the region with core surf and skate crowd represents a good market for them, to increase sales. In order to accomplish their goals they have been and will continue hiring more employees. Also they are working in more innovating designs for their speakers, headphones and amplifiers (White, Ronald). Finally, they are forecasting to have $5 million on sales this year, a totally different amount than in 2010, when they had just $700,000 in revenue (White, Ronald). But it makes sense since they had $3.5 million revenue in 2012 .
Some other OrigAudio products in the market, mentioned in Ronald’s article, are:

  • The Fold and Play speakers, which looks like a Chinese restaurant, take out box.
  • The Rock-It, which according to the article, includes a piece of the size of a marshmallow peep candy.

It looks like these entrepreneurs from Chicago are doing a good job in the growing stage of their products, since they are working on the competitive improvements and options.
Do you think they will be able to stretch their products’ life cycle enough for OrigAudio to earn and keep a good place in the market?
What would be your recommendations for these entrepreneurs to maintain their business growing?

Source:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/la-fi-socal-design-20130510,0,5421129.story